Towards a Cyberpragmatics of Mobile Instant Messaging Francisco Yus
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Towards a cyberpragmatics of mobile instant messaging Francisco Yus University of Alicante, Spain ABSTRACT Cyberpragmatics analyses Internet-mediated communication from a cognitive pragmatics, relevance- theoretic perspective. It focuses on the inferential strategies that “addressee users” engage in while processing information located on the Net or the one exchanged with other users through this virtual medium. In this sense, the theory underlines the role that the interfaces play in the eventual (ir)relevant outcome of the acts of communication that take place on the Net. In this chapter, I will sketch the main research issues that cyberpragmatics should address when studying mobile instant messaging applications (WhatsApp, WeChat, Snapchat...). As a theory grounded in cognitive pragmatics, cyberpragmatics aims at explaining how users make sense of messages when transmitted on the Net. However, in order to achieve that, an extension of analysis is proposed as necessary for this kind of mobile phone-mediated interaction, so as to cover not only propositional aspects of communication (i.e. the relevance of the information exchanged), but also non-propositional constraints and effects associated with this kind of communication and which play a major role in the eventual (dis)satisfaction. New terminology will be added to the general relevance-theoretic formula of positive cognitive effects vs. mental effort, opening up interesting paths for future research on why mobile-mediated interactions end up (ir)relevant to the users. 1. Cognitive pragmatics and cyberpragmatics Relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1995, henceforth RT) claims that all human cognition is relevance-oriented, to the extent that all the stimuli that humans pay attention to are selected due to their potential interest, while many others are discarded due to their irrelevance. This general tendency to focus on potentially relevant inputs is covered by the cognitive principle of relevance: “Human beings are geared to the maximization of relevance”. With this evolved cognitive ability, humans are really good at minimising mental effort by selecting from context only the quantity and quality of information that is bound to aid in deriving relevant conclusions from any input. An example is provided in Yus (2011a) concerning a doctorate student that comes across a yellow Mercedes while walking on campus: (1) New information (visual input): A yellow Mercedes is parked near our Department. (2) Information already available (from encyclopaedic knowledge): a. Professor Smith, who supervises my thesis, owns a yellow Mercedes. b. Professor Smith usually takes the bus to the university. c. Only when he intends to stay at university till late in the evening does he drive his car to university (since there are no late buses returning to where he lives). (3) (Relevant) conclusion (inferred by combining (1) and (2)): This evening I will be able to discuss with him at length how my thesis is progressing. RT would claim that in a situation where (1) is processed, (3) would be relevant since it can only result from the combination of (1) and (2). A similar procedure also applies to linguistic communication (see below) and, as is claimed within cyberpragmatics, also to Internet-mediated communication. This cognitive principle is at work in the processing of any kind of stimulus, both verbal and visual (and also applies to one’s own thoughts in a specific situation, some of which are more likely to be entertained than others). However, RT is more interested in narrowing down this broad application of the cognitive principle to the specific analysis of verbal communication, as we can deduce from the main objective of RT: “to identify underlying mechanisms, rooted in human psychology, which explain how humans communicate with one another” (Sperber and Wilson 1995: 32). Again, and included in the aforementioned cognitive principle, there is another principle but communication-centred: the communicative principle of relevance: “Every act of ostensive communication conveys the presumption of its own optimal relevance”. This presumption sets inferential strategies in motion in order to turn the schematic meaning of the words uttered by the speaker into a contextualised and meaningful proposition matching the intended interpretation. In order to accomplish this choice of interpretations, addressees invariably tend to choose the first interpretation that provides an optimal balance between the following two conditions (square brackets now added): Condition a. An assumption [information, in plain words] is relevant to an individual to the extent that the positive cognitive effects [its interest, in plain words] achieved when it is optimally processed are large. Condition b. An assumption is relevant to an individual to the extent that the [mental] effort required to achieve these positive cognitive effects is small. Needless to say, to determine which is the first, most relevant interpretation depends enormously on context accessibility. According to the underdeterminacy thesis, all utterances communicate more information than the meaning that is literally coded, and the addressee has to use context to turn this schematic meaning into a fully contextualised and relevant interpretation. This applies to the explicit level of interpretation (explicatures), since addressees often have to engage in reference resolution (4a), disambiguation, resolution of the domain of quantifiers (4b), concept adjustment (4c), saturation of unarticulated constituents (4d), etc. And of course the gap between what is coded and what is meant and interpreted is even higher in the case of implicit communication (implicatures), which are inferred beyond the propositional information of the utterance with the aid of contextual information. In this way, that same utterance may convey utterly different implicatures when contextual support varies. An example is provided in Mike’s answer to John in (5). If John can access the intended contextual information (6a-c), he will derive the different implicatures (6a’-c’). (4) a. I saw her there talking to Peter. I saw [whom?] [where?] talking to [whom?]. b. I’ve got nothing to wear for the party. I’ve got nothing [elegant, classy] to wear for the party. c. John drinks too much. John drinks [alcohol] too much. d. She is a better candidate. She is a better candidate [than whom?] [for what?]. (5) John: Now, tell me, how’s your girlfriend? Mike: She’s no longer my girlfriend. (6) a. [Mike and his girlfriend have been preparing the wedding ceremony]. a’ Implicature: Mike and his girlfriend are now married. b.[A woman normally stops being a girlfriend when she splits up with her boyfriend]. b’ Implicature: Mike and his girlfriend have split up. c.[Mike’s girlfriend was suffering from terminal cancer]. c’ Implicature: Mike’s girlfriend has passed away. Cyberpragmatics (Yus 2001, 2010, 2011a, 2013) aims to apply these relevance-theoretic claims to the specific environment of Internet-mediated communication. One of the central aims is to determine why Internet users often resort to and find relevance in plain text-based communication even though several options with a higher level of contextualisation (video, sound) are also available in many interfaces used nowadays for Internet-mediated interactions. It also analyses how users fill the gap between what is coded and what is interpreted, and the role of technological aspects in the eventual assessment of relevance (cognitive effects vs. processing effort, as mentioned above). In this sense, it should be stressed that the inferential strategies used for interpreting discourses sent through the Net do not differ from the ones used in the interpretation of utterances in situations of physical co-presence. There is only one biologically rooted ability to obtain relevant interpretations, regardless of the type of utterance, the channel used, and the richness of contextual information. Similarly, users expect their virtual interlocutors to retrieve from context some specific information that will enable them to reach the intended interpretation of their messages. However, the characteristics of the different applications for Internet communication (chatrooms, Messenger, e-mail, Web pages, etc.) affect the quality and quantity of contextual information accessed by users, the mental effort devoted to interpretation, and the choice of an interpretation. In short, cyberpragmatics analyses exchanges that take place in all forms of Internet-mediated communication, and what we can label the “material qualities” of the interfaces (basically their position on the verbal-visual and oral-written scales in terms of options for contextualisation) will have an impact on the balance of cognitive effects (i.e., interest) and mental effort obtained during the relevance-seeking interpretation of these utterances. 2. SMS, IM and MIM Mobile phone applications such as WhatsApp, Snapchat or WeChat, among many others, are initially intended to provide users with the possibility to send typed messages to friends or contacts. As such, they look as if they are actually an evolution of SMS communication, but in reality typing words on the screen is the only similarity with SMS, since they are closer to the instant messaging programs (IM) that were so popular several years ago, among them the once ubiquitous Messenger, now extinct. This is why these applications are generically labelled mobile instant messaging (henceforth MIM) and their options for communication